Magic Lantern: Four new movies on Friday’s slate

Above : Mila Al Zahrani stars in “The Perfect Candidate.” (Photo/Music Box Films)

It’s pretty clear that the Magic Lantern is back in business.

How do I know that? Well, regardless of the fact that my wife and I had the larger of the two theaters all by ourselves during a recent screening of “Undine,” I just received an email from manager Jonathan Abrahamson.

And what did Jonathan have to say? That the theater was not just going to open more movies on Friday, it was going to open four of them. Four.

Here they are:

“Shiva Baby” : A 20-something Jewish woman’s offbeat lifestyle comes to an uncomfortable head when she attends a shiva for a family friend and all the loose threads of her life come together. Written and directed by Emma Seligman, starring Rachel Sennott, Molly Gordon, Polly Draper.

Wrote Jason Bailey for the New York Times: “It’s rare for a film to simultaneously balance such wildly divergent tones, to interweave big laughs with gut-wrenching discomfort, but Seligman pulls it off.”

“Queen Bees” : When a woman moves into a home for seniors, she has to deal with a clique of unkind women and a romance-minded man. Directed by Michael Lembeck. Starring Ellen Burstyn, Ann-Margret, Jane Curtin, James Can.

No reviews available at the moment.

“The Perfect Candidate” : When a young Saudi doctor is denied permission to attend a conference in Dubai without a male escort, she surprises everyone by running as a candidate for the local municipal council. Directed and co-written by Haifaa Al-Mansour, starring Mila Al Zahrani.

The Washington Post’s Ann Hornaday had this to say: “Mansour gives audiences a candid, often wryly amusing glimpse of life inside the Saudi kingdom, which is so often cloaked in opacity and menace.”

“Final Account” : A documentary built around interviews of the last living generation of German citizens from Hitler’s era, detailing what individual roles they played.

Los Angeles Times critic Gary Goldstein wrote this: “It’s a fascinating look, yet again, at one of history’s most horrendous periods and explores the era’s eternal question: ‘Were you a perpetrator if you knew, but said or did nothing?’ ”

So, that’s the lot. Oh, and just so you know, the popcorn at the Lantern is as good as ever.